At a sawmill operation, logs are often cut by a bandsaw designed for cutting logs of various diameters and lengths. The bandsaw blade of the bandsaw is a flat metal loop having teeth on one edge and no teeth on the other edge. The bandsaw blade is looped around two bandsaw wheels that put tension on the blade and pull the blade in such a direction that the teeth of the blade cut through the log as a bandsaw carriage moves along rails. The bandsaw wheels are rotated by a motor such as combustion engine or an electrical motor. The outer edge, i.e., the rim of each bandsaw wheel has crown shape in order to keep the blade near the center of the rim and positioned to provide an efficient cutting operation.
Over a period of time the crown shape of the rim of the wheel becomes somewhat flattened due to normal wear. In order to recondition, i.e., return the crown to a desired shape, the band saw wheel is removed and replaced with a new or refurbished band saw wheel having the desired crown shape on the rim of the bandsaw wheel. Such an operation may take several hours and places the saw in a nonproductive condition. Further, the bandsaw wheel that had a flattened rim is often shipped to a machine shop for reconditioning.
Because there is a variety of arrangements of bandsaw wheels and sizes of wheels, it is often necessary to have several replacement wheels stored near the sawmill operation using the bandsaw. If a replacement wheel is not available, then the bandsaw remains nonproductive until a replacement bandsaw wheel is located and installed. Bandsaw wheels are positioned along a vertical axis when a blade makes a vertical cut and are positioned along a horizontal axis when a blade makes a horizontal cut. In any arrangement of bandsaw wheels, if one wheel is worn, it may be necessary to remove and recondition additional band saw wheels. Hence, it is often desirable to keep a large inventory of bandsaw wheels to minimize downtime.